Make Studio Quality Recordings With Audacity: Part 3

In part 1 and part 2 of this series, we explained how the easy-to-use, free program Audacity can give you professional-quality audio results at home. First, I showed you how to download and install Audacity and the explained how to to use it reduce noise and compensate for the sound levels in a recording.

So check out those articles first, if you aren’t familiar with the program.

Today, we’re going to learn even more.  For our audio clip to sound its best, we need to add base and treble . To do this, go to Effect menu and click Equalization.

Click on the drop-down button next to Select Curve. Select Bass Boost and click OK.

Go Effect menu again and select Equalization. Choose Treble Boost from the drop-down menu and click OK.

We want audio to be free from any kind of distortion.  If we play our recording with full volume it should not sound distorted. To ensure this we will be using the hard limiter option . This option trims high peaks of an audio clip and lowers it to match the lower peaks.

Go  Effect menu and click the drop-down button located at the bottom to find the Limit option. Some versions of Audacity show Hard Limiter in the drop-down menu without clicking the arrow.

Select Limit option and choose Hard Limit under Type by clicking the drop-down button located at the top-right corner.

Set limit to (dB) as -4 either by moving the slider to the right or directly typing in the box and click OK.

For the final step of editing, we are going to repeat the step of normalizing the audio clip. Go to Effect menu and click Normalize.

In order to save our edited clip we will use the export feature of audacity. Go to File menu and click the Export Audio option.

Type the file name and choose MP3 files under the Save as Type option.

Click on Options and select 320 kbps under Quality and click OK.

Finally, click on  Save button. You can fill in artist’s name, track title and other details if you wish to do or simply click OK in the Edit Metadata Window.

A window will pop up that says ‘Audacity needs the file lame_enc.dll to create MP3s’.

Click the Browse button and locate the lame file  you downloaded earlier. Select the lame file and click Open. Finally click OK in the previous window. Your audio clip will be successfully saved into a mp3 file.

Enjoy exploring Audacity. Don’t forget to try out some of the optional filters and effects. The program can really give your home recording a professional sound.

~ S. Sakar.